Leviathan
by Inaqui
Summary: A selfless act turns the group’s happy ending into something far more ugly, and an old enemy may be the only answer. The Jewel is sick of being the one being used... Alternate reality canon where Kikyo didn't die. Fairly dark, not for the WAFF seeker.
1. Prologue

**Leviathan  
****  
**

* * *

Summary: A selfless act turns the group's happy ending into something far more ugly, and an old enemy may be the only answer. The Jewel is sick of being the one being used…

Alternate reality canon. Kikyo is still 'alive', for instance.

* * *

"_For certain is death for the born_

_And certain is birth for the dead; _

_Therefore over the inevitable_

_Thou shouldst not grieve." _

_Bhagavad-Gita _

* * *

****

**Prologue  
**

* * *

Frozen in excruciating indecision, Kagome clutched the completed Jewel to her bosom, eyes wide and terrified as Naraku squeezed his tentacles slowly tighter, his cruel smile widening as Shippou squealed in agony. The kitsune tore at the slimy grey skin crushing his chest with his tiny claws as he slowly ran out of strength, and Kagome could see the pain in InuYasha's eyes as he pleaded with her.

"Kagome, listen to me! Save the runt!" he yelled as the last of the air in his lungs was forced out. She choked on a sob at the desperation in his voice, the way his eyes _begged_ her to listen to him. 

"Kagome!" Sango screamed, charging in from the left. Hiraikotsu was poised above her head, and she let it fly. The miasma parted briefly and a lesser youkai fell screaming to ground. Kagome heard Miroku gasp Sango's name before his breath turned into a horrible gurgle, the blood slowly filling his lungs. 

"Choose, priestess! Save one lest they both die before your eyes!" Naraku bellowed, his eyes shining red and terrible. 

Shippou screamed and she heard a sickening crack. Miroku's horrible rattling breath stopped. A tentacle raced towards Sango who blocked that _instant too late_… 

And InuYasha stared into her eyes as everything fell apart around her. 

Shaking violently, tears running down her face and down off her trembling chin, washing the blood away, Kagome closed her eyes… 

… and _wished_. 

* * *

Kagome groaned and turned her head to the side, fighting the pounding in her skull. Her eyelids fluttered open, eyes squinting to try and focus on the world around her.

Her breath caught as she remembered those last few moments of nauseating terror, feeling sick to her stomach as her two companions screamed, watching them be slowly crushed.

"Did it work?" she breathed, hardly daring to hope.

Fabric rustled near her ear and a rough hand grasped her own. She knew that hand, those calluses. That hand had caught her and borne her when she couldn't bear herself. She was safe. Always safe as long as he was there.

"Yeah," InuYasha whispered, leaning down to talk into her ear. "You did it, wench. You saved us all."

She closed her eyes and smiled, the pressure on her heart easing, that twinge of guilt that she had lived with for years finally fading. She was _free_. It was gone, it was finished, all of it. No Naraku to fight. No quest to save the world. No jewel to protect and worry over.

"_We_ did it, InuYasha. All of us," she murmured.

InuYasha squeezed her hand and let it go, moving away before she could stop him.

_**  
He always leaves you. He will never stay for you. You think you'll be worth anything to him anymore?**_

Her eyes flew open, heart pounding at that snarl inside her head. Panicked, she glanced around the hut as best she could from her position, but was met with frayed wooden walls and earthenware jars. They were all gone, even InuYasha.

Trepidation still gnawing at her gut, she relaxed back onto the woodblock, her head aching.

_  
Hallucinating, huh? I must be more tired than I thought._

As she slipped off to sleep, a dark chuckle rang out in a corner of her mind… 


	2. Chapter 1

**Leviathan**

* * *

"_A man who was completely innocent, _

_offered himself as a sacrifice for the good of others, _

_including his enemies, _

_and became the ransom of the world. _

_It was a perfect act."_

_Ghandi_

* * *

**Chapter One  
**

How had it come to this?

Days, weeks, even months spent agonizing over other answers, other plans, _anything_ other that _this_. Nothing worked. No one could offer answers. There was no aid to be had. Nothing could tame the beast that raged, nothing could redeem them, and so, pride and guilt was swallowed, hatreds buried --- to a point --- and they came to her to beg. Their last resort, their final hope, Kikyo stood dispassionately before the three companions, her answer still ungiven.

Black hair drifting languidly in the dusk breeze, Kikyo blinked slowly as InuYasha fidgeted, ears twitching and hands flexing convulsively. He was as awkward as always in her presence, unsure how to act. Half a year had passed since she had last seen him, since they'd given each other away, releasing claims that maybe they had never really had to begin with. She was free from his guilt, and he from her vengeance. _It is better this way_, she thought bitterly, if not entirely truthfully, no matter how she wished that he was bound to her for eternity, in an epic of betrayal and revenge for the ages. It had seemed so…fitting.

But life had never really fit with what she had imagined, had it? She was just being dramatic.

The monk gazed steadily at her with perfect calm, masking his dislike for her, but the demon slayer beside him exhibited no such restraint. No matter the enormity of what they had come here for, what they had asked for her to sacrifice for their sake, the slayer would never conceal her feelings for the other woman. A simmering suspicion and seething hatred showed in her every minute action: the suppressed tension that her body fairly quivered with, her jaw muscles twitching with the effort to stay silent, the look of pure _loathing_ when Kikyo met her gaze, even as Sango had bowed formally and humbly requested her help.

Out of the three of them, Sango most of all had despised the idea of asking Kikyo for anything. Anything was better than relying on a betrayer and a murderer. Kikyo could just imagine that argument and Sango's fury at allowing another life to rest in her hands to throw away as callously as the last.

Kikyo sighed slightly and turned away from them, walking towards her hut. The sun's last glow in the west was fading, a chill seeping into the air, and the wind began to pick up. A serpentine creature twined around her, the shinidamachuu dropping the shimmering cargo into her with a low whine, Kikyo quivering slightly as the soul settled inside her.

She could practically feel Sango shudder.

They followed her into her bare hut with not a word spoken. There was no food to offer them, her body needing nothing of the sort, but she set to making tea, something of her old life that she still indulged in. The taste was refreshing, the actions familiar, and she could use something calming.

"Kikyo---"

She held up a delicate hand and InuYasha stopped. She would not be rushed into this decision. If what they had told her was true, and her suspicions also correct, then time was not really the issue. A well thought out, measured approach was by far the wiser course.

She was still weighing the rational aspects, carefully holding the emotion at bay until it wasn't quite so raw.

The water boiled and she brewed the tea, watching the tea-leaves plump and expand in the hot water, revived from brittle brown stalks back to shiny green. They almost looked alive by the end of a pot.

Her three guests sat tensely, gripping their cups with white knuckled fingers, lips little more than lines and their brows furrowed. She was their last hope, after all. _How uncomfortable they must feel. Yet they remain_.

With a tiny exhalation that barely shifted the air, an indulgence of temper more than need of breath, Kikyo decided.

"InuYasha."

His ears were pricked, quivering, so tense that they nearly leapt out of his head.

"I will come. Perhaps there is something to be done."

The way his eyes shone, the tiny, nearly inaudible choking sound of relief, how his ears drooped as the tension that had defined him for months relaxed…

_Would he have ever done something like this for me?_

Kikyo quashed the sentiment with ruthless efficiency. She was a priestess, raised for selflessness. Her calling was to sacrifice her own happiness for the wellbeing of others. Petty jealousies were unworthy of her.

All the same, she watched out of the corner of her eye as the monk and the demon slayer collapsed into each other's arms and InuYasha smiled softly, contentedly.

_At least they have faith in my skills_.

But that was just another thing to be jealous of.

* * *

Riding the fire-cat was… an experience.

The wind shot past at incredible speeds as Sango leaned forward, her body shifting and adjusting to the minute changes in Kirara's balance, perfectly in tune.

Kikyo was not nearly so adept.

Trying to hang onto her dignity as well as her position behind Sango was a quandary she was gradually giving up on. As they hit another air pocket and plummeted, Kikyo scrabbled for purchase on the sleek bodysuit, finally just clasping her arms round Sango's waist, dignity be damned.

_It must make her sick, to have me touch her like this_. But Sango was strong, strongest of them all, maybe, and she did not even flinch as Kikyo's cold flesh touched her.

Sango chuckled maliciously at Kikyo's loss of poise. "Not as easy as it looks like from the ground, is it?"

Kikyo did not deign to reply to such a question, especially in such a tone. That and she was too busy staring at the very sharp rocks flying past beneath them. _Even a body of clay would break upon them…_

Sango laughed quietly again, and Kirara dipped abruptly, just barely skimming the tree-line.

It was a petty revenge. But it was working, and another turbulent plunge had Kikyo clinging to Sango like a needy baby, dignity and reputation forgotten.

The landing was bumpy as the trip, and Kikyo smoothed her impassive mask back on, ignoring Sango's smirk as she shakily rebalanced on legs turned to liquid. _Enjoy it, slayer, for it will not last._ Turning her back summarily on Sango and her mocking gaze, she took in the scene with once-more expressionless eyes.

The quarantine zone was immediately obvious. A ring of debris, flattened huts, detritus and general destruction fanned out from a single hut on the westernmost edge of the village, a few ruined paddy fields of churned mud and the occasional surviving plant at its back. InuYasha was speaking with two earnest, stressed looking men clutching spears standing just outside the ring of chaos

_So isolation has worked…to a point. I wonder why the range is so small…_

"Kikyo!" InuYasha waved her down the hill. The whispers followed her as people poked their heads out of doors. Villages have long memories, and here her legend was still fresh as new. Her face never wavered from the stoic mask she had perfected so long ago.

The two men who stood with InuYasha bowed deeply when she reached the edge of the village, staring steadily at the solitary hut and ignoring the men beside her.

"She is there, then?"

InuYasha hesitated. "Yeah… but do you think---"

"I will do this now, or not at all."

He let out an angry sigh. "Fine." He nodded to the two men distractedly. With badly concealed relief they strode quickly away from the perimeter.

Kikyo took a deep breath, even though the air meant nothing to her body, and prepared to meet the beast.

The aura slammed into her own as soon as she stepped over the threshold. It tugged at her soul and dove into her mind, flicking through her thoughts, secrets, fears, hopes, dreams.

_No. Out._

The presence recoiled as she rebuffed it, unused to resistance, before attacking with renewed force, clawing at the walls she had set up hastily around herself, scrabbling to get in to the one being that could resist it.

And they were standing at the door.

InuYasha's face was grim as he turned to the hastily-fitted door held on by thick chains, taking a heavy key out of his haori and fitting it to the lock. The sweat was running down his face, and Kikyo could only begin to imagine what was happening inside his head. Images of his worst fears, biggest dreams, people he cared about… what was the beast doing to him as he slowly turned the key, opened the door.

And there sat the beast, hanging by the wrists from thick, sturdy iron shackles. Black hair hung lank and greasy over the face, skin covered in slick substances that Kikyo didn't want to name, clothes nearly completely shredded… and _eyes_ that seared into Kikyo's.

InuYasha's voice was quiet, cracked, nearly a whisper.

"Kagome… she's come to help you."

There was silence, as Kagome stared at Kikyo and Kikyo stared back, mirror-images and yet both so much more and less than that. The tension began to ebb from his body: maybe she would comply.

Then Kagome exploded.

Her face contorted into pure animalistic rage as she shrieked like a banshee and flung herself forward, the restraints catching her and jerking her back, only for her to throw her weight against them again, wrists and arms bending at impossible angles as she hissed and spat.

"InuYasha, leave," Kikyo murmured.

"BITCH! Want to try and kill me again? Send him out so that you can put poor little Kagome out of her misery?" Kagome snarled, her squeals finally resolving into coherent speech. Kikyo didn't flinch, but InuYasha did.

"Kagome, please---"

"Shut up! Betrayer! First you let her die, now me! You never cared about either of us! Bastard! Filth! Liar! _Hanyou_!" she screamed, her body thrashing and writhing against the shackles, her feet kicking out just to try and reach him, hurt him. Kikyou wondered at his restraint, at the quiet anguished calm in his eyes, the patient waiting.

And then Kagome stopped. The fight drained out of her as she slumped and her head fell forward.

Kikyo heard InuYasha exhale beside her.

"She's back."

Kikyo's eyes narrowed, but the assault against her soul had ceased, and Kagome had started to cry.

"InuYasha…"

He went, shaking off the hand that Kikyo placed on his arm to stop him. Kneeling on the filthy floor of the hut, he lifted Kagome's chin gently. Two tear streaks ran through the muck on her face, and she sobbed as InuYasha smoothed away the rest.

"Help me," she whispered, so quietly that Kikyo almost missed it.

"Always," he murmured, leaning forward to rest his forehead against hers.

"Kill me."

"_Never_."

This would get them nowhere.

"InuYasha, leave."

He scowled as he turned to face her, keeping a grip on Kagome's arm. "No. I don't leave her while she's like this."

Kikyo tried not to click her tongue or frown. He had been the one to ask _her_ for help, for heaven's sake. "InuYasha, time is running out, and I have questions. Questions that I do not want you to hear the answers to."

"There's nothing she can say that I would---"

"No. InuYasha… go," Kagome whispered, meeting and holding Kikyo's gaze, her quiet weeping halted. A strange calm showed on her face as the two women stared at each other, and Kagome pulled herself up straight by the restraints, something of her old defiance returning to her.

"But---"

"Please. I need you to."

With compliance that Kikyo would never had believed, but with hesitation in every movement, InuYasha stood and left the hut. Although not without a final suspicious glance at Kikyo.

"He is still outside," Kagome murmured, and Kikyo knew that she was being measured.

"Of course he is. But he will not hear us."

"Not unless I scream."

"Are you going to?"

Kagome smiled thinly, leaning her head back against the wall with a sigh, the chains rattling at her movement. "That depends on you, now, doesn't it?"

The hopelessness in her reincarnation's eyes jolted her: the mirror was clearer now than ever. Narrowing her eyes, Kikyo sank into a crouch an arm's length away from Kagome. "I'm here to help you."

With the listless ghost of a smile, Kagome whispered, "Nothing works. Sutras, prayers, meditation. I can't keep them out. I fight them, and fight them, but… they're getting stronger. There are moments like this, where I remember everything, then it just fades to being angry, so angry, and I hate everything, everyone…" She tapered off with a grimace.

Kikyo frowned lightly. "Kagome. I need you to tell me everything."

* * *

Kikyo leant against the wall of the hut, watching Kagome impassively as she raged, nearly snapping her wrists in her attempts to get at her. The mental assault was just as fierce, auras and shared soul clashing like waves against a cliff. Kikyo was immovable; she had been doing this a very long time, and her defences were strong. But Kagome was slowly, slowly wearing her down with sheer brute _power_. She would have to leave soon, and leave the beast to its anger.

No. Not the beast. Kagome was still in there.

No matter either woman's personal feeling toward the other, that fact changed everything. There was no possibility of backing out, of offering a meaningless platitude for comfort and leaving it up to fate, leaving Kagome to either break free or die. This was the young woman who had saved them all, and Kikyo, whether she liked it or not --- and it was most definitely not --- owed her. She had to do something, resentment, anger, bitterness, and just plain hatred notwithstanding.

_But how… how can I fix this?_ Kikyo knew the problem, oh yes, but the solution still eluded her. Kagome's answer was unacceptable.

"_Kill me. Shoot me, purify me, starve me… just kill me. They're getting stronger, and I can't win. Kill me before they take me completely. Let me leave with something still left inside me."_

Kikyo had given the same response as InuYasha, though her motives were different: never. She was never one to give up or be defeated. She hadn't even stayed dead. She would fix this, refuse to ever give up, to concede the battle. Foolishness, tenaciousness, guilt, or just sheer bloody-mindedness… she didn't really care what it was that kept her going. Just that it did.

Kagome had been the same, once.

But… could it be possible that this could not be fixed? Was this beyond even her?

_What would InuYasha do if I fail?_

"Kikyo? You done yet?"

With a grim nod for Kagome, who snarled and spat in return, Kikyo left the hut, closing the door behind her.

She allowed herself a small smile at the barely suppressed tension that she could feel fairly radiating from InuYasha as he fitted the chains onto the crude door and secured the hut distractedly, casting not-so-subtle glances at her out of the corner of his eye. His ears rotated like crazy, trying to train on her but unable to take their focus completely away from Kagome.

"So?"

"Wait. There is much to be said and I dislike repeating myself."

He scowled, but nodded jerkily, muscles in his jaw twitching as the two began to slowly walk away from the hut. How changed he was. No bluster, no demands for _now_, just tense restraint. _What is she doing to his mind while we walk? When did he become so tempered?_

"We… we were going to get married, you know." InuYasha's voice was barely a whisper, and Kikyo's gut twisted. She had loved this man once, as much as she had been able to.

"At first… she was just grumpy. Well, more than usual," he added with a wry smile, before sobering quickly. "She'd yell for no reason, sit me for nothing… then she nearly killed Shippou. That was when we knew something was really wrong."

Just barely keeping emotion out of her tone, Kikyo said, "InuYasha, you have told me all of this---"

"Not everything," he almost snarled, running his hands through his bangs in a nervous habit new to him. With a deep breath, he calmed visibly as they crossed out of Kagome's reach and the assault on their minds ceased.

"We were going to get married," InuYasha repeated, staring back towards the little hut that still echoed with the sounds of Kagome's rage, his expression wistful but stoic. "I was going to build her a house, the best house in the village, and we were going to be happy. So happy…"

_That should have been me_.

"We… she changed me. After you left, when it was finally over, I was still… guilty, I guess. Kagome helped me get over that."

Kikyo's mask had faded, her lips in a tight line. _Does he care _nothing_ for my feelings?_ "Do you think that she would want you to tell me this?"

"Yes." It was emphatic, confident, definite. He had no doubts. _He trusts that shell of a woman going berserk in the hut.__But he doesn't trust _me.

"Why?"

"Because she's like that."

_Simple as that, huh?_ "InuYasha, please---"

"Listen!" He turned to her with a furious scowl. "Kikyo, this is important. I never told anyone else this, not Miroku, not Sango, not even Kaede before she died." Kikyo winced slightly. They hadn't even contacted her when Kaede died; she had found out the day that they had come to her.

They had taken her only family from her, made it their own.

The sun was setting slowly over the forest, tinting the rice paddies and the clouds pink. The familiar sounds of the ending of the day echoed up from the huts, and Kikyo felt a tug at her heart. This had been her home, too, once.

"When… one night, we were talking, and things… got out of hand."

Kikyo didn't need to look at him to know that he was bright red. If there were blood in her veins, she was sure that she would be blushing, too. He had always been insensitive. Kikyo knew that. But right then, all she wanted to do was grab him by the shoulders and tell him to _stop_.

She was sure that Kagome had never wanted to hear about _their_ encounters; why should she endure this? Was he so incredibly naïve? Or did he _want_ to hurt her, to punish her as Sango had on Kirara, to make her pay for the time lost, lives lost, _innocence_ lost… because she _had_ taken his innocence, showed him how to hurt, how to get at someone from inside, how to manipulate them until they promised anything, even to go to hell.

"But then, she changed. I'd gotten used to her mood swings by then, but it was different. She wasn't just angry… She's never hurt me before… _never_… but she just stared at me and smiled as she purified me…"

His voice trailed off and he turned to her, grabbing her shoulders and staring into her eyes with the fiercest expression she had ever seen on him.

"Help her. _Please_."

And he was off, bounding away into the forest as the sun finally disappeared, leaving a golden glow in its wake.

_That's probably the only thing he's ever begged for in his life_.

She closed her eyes tightly, as if to hold back tears, even though her body could not cry. She would never cry even if she could.

Opening them slowly, she stared after the only man that she had ever let close to her heart. Perhaps it was her fault that they had never trusted each other. Goodness knows that she had kept him at arms length, even when she had seen the hurt in his eyes. She had been as jaded and miserable as he, but she at least had belonged somewhere, somewhere that she could have shared with him if she had just been brave enough… brave enough to face the scorn, to look past the hatred in her heart, to look past her resentment of the Jewel and her duty.

But she had been a coward, and received a coward's due, punishment extending even after death. InuYasha had been redeemed, rewarded and renewed, over and over again, the shadows leaving his eyes and gaining a salvation tenacious enough to stay with even him, while Kikyo was kicked around by fate time and time again.

So she had accepted the dirty work, adopting the "end justifies the means" creed as her cold comfort. It was her penance. It would all be okay if InuYasha was still hers, she had thought. The end would be worth it. He'd understand why she did what did, why she _had to_.

But no. Even he had turned away from her. She could still remember with horrifying clarity the day that Kohaku had finally died. The pure hatred on the monk and the slayer's faces branded her. The pity in Kagome's stung that petty part inside her, and above all, the shock and pain in InuYasha's eyes as the slayer boy had fallen to the ground, as she handed the shard over to Naraku right in front of him.

It had been the only way, she had known that, the _only way_. Why couldn't they have seen that? Why couldn't they have understood? She had needed to redeem herself, to shake off the cowardice that had doomed her before, to do _what needed to be done_ no matter what it was, no matter what they thought of her…what she thought of herself.

But in the end, she had been wrong. She had not defeated Naraku. She had become a coward again, the convictions that had defined her in life dissolved in this undeath. She had not been redeemed, her shame not erased, but magnified instead. All she had gained was a worse reputation and the hatred of some very dangerous people. Oh, and of course, how could she forget, the man that she had died for was now pouring out his feelings for _another woman_ to her, begging for her help.

Kikyo sighed. She hated Kagome, she freely admitted that. The girl had usurped everything that Kikyo ever wanted, become everything that Kikyo had desperately wanted to be. On some jealous, petty level, she wished that she could have been Kagome.

The bitterness was sour even as she berated herself for it. Kagome had won, fair and square, and Kikyo resented that… but her successor had not got away scot-free. She had InuYasha, but she was obviously paying for it.

Suddenly, the only possible solution formed, simple and obvious, and so fitting. Kikyo's sense of dramatic irony was morbidly satisfied. This tale, at least, would have an appropriate end.

_But… for this, InuYasha will not forgive me._

* * *

"There is nothing I can do."

The silence was deafening.

Sango was the first to try and change her mind. "What do you mean? You're the most powerful priestess since Midoriko! You _have_ to be able to do _something_!"

The dead woman said nothing. This outburst was expected, and planned for.

"There has to be some mistake, something you have overlooked. At the very least you _must_ know what ails her, so perhaps if we all work together a solution will be made clear," the monk pleaded, holding tightly onto Shippou who was bawling his eyes out, adding his own contribution to the tension.

Sango and Miroku begged her, threatened her, promised her anything if she would just _try_.

"Stop it." InuYasha was turned away from them, his face shadowed and body tense. "If she says that there's nothing, that's what she means. She never lies."

_So he remembers that much about me_, she thought somewhat bitterly as he turned around…and felt like she had been punched in the gut.

InuYasha's face was white, sickly, drained. Eyes normally so bright were dull even in the firelight, and he looked as if he were about to keel over right there and then.

The guilt nearly overpowered her.

"There is nothing _I_ can do," she said again slowly, her eyes on InuYasha the entire time, "but… there may be something."

Slowly his gaze dragged upwards to meet hers, the tension sinking into him and slowly tightening each muscle in his body until he was a taught quivering spring, ready to leap into any action.

"There is…" She hesitated, but InuYasha's gaze held her, surely, securely, and she knew that there was no turning back. With a mental deep breath, she steeled herself. "There is an order of Buddhist monks on Mount Hiei. The teachings are rigorous but they may---"

"No!"

"Miroku!" InuYasha yelled, the tension in his body coiling to strike. "Let her finish!"

"But InuYasha, do you know what she's---"

"If it'll help Kagome, _I don't care_!"

Kikyo sat quietly, feeling Sango's suspicious eyes on her.

"The mountain is surrounded by a barrier more pure than anything on all the islands. Dengyo Daishi's spirit protects it; he may protect Kagome, even from the demons inside her."

"Demons? Inside her?" Sango whispered, leaning forward to try and catch Kikyo's eye.

"Yes," she stated, as emotionless and factual as she could force herself to be.

"What do you mean? She can't be possessed, we tried exorcising her already," InuYasha growled, hands shoved into his sleeves, Tetsusaiga cradled to him.

"Kagome's sacrifice is demanding more from her than she ever thought it would," Kikyo murmured.

The reaction was instantaneous. Miroku sprang to his feet, staff at the ready, Sango coiled herself into a position that she could attack from easily, even Shippou frizzed his tail and bared his tiny little claws at her.

"What do you mean? Which sacrifice?" InuYasha snarled.

"Kagome told you what her wish was, did she not?"

They all froze, InuYasha's eyes nearly branding her, they burned so hot.

"No. That's the one thing she never did tell us," Sango bit out, glaring daggers at the undead woman, who smiled slightly, ironically.

"She told me. And that wish is exactly the problem."

With a brief shut of her eyes, Kikyo went for the direct approach, ignoring the way the slayer bristled. "Her wish didn't purify the Jewel into non-existence as you all believe. Rather, she absorbed the power of the Jewel within herself to overcome Naraku's strength. _All_ of the Jewel. Both sides, good and evil.

"The burns on her arms would never have been sustained had it been simply her own spiritual power. It was augmented not only by Midoriko, but by the demons within that Jewel. _They_ burned her hands, and _they_ hold sway during her fits."

InuYasha stared at the fire, and déjà vu hit Kikyo hard in the gut. His eyes had gone unreadable, body language passive and blank, just like he had always sat in her company.

He was protecting himself, shielding himself and erecting all the old barriers that Kagome had spent so much time pulling down, that Kikyo had so wanted to climb.

_Maybe this time, it can be me… while she's…_

"What do we have to do to get them out?" he ground out, teeth clenched, ears flat.

"Wait." The monk's voice was smooth and calm, his con-man's voice. "If Kagome absorbed the Jewel, should it not have been purified by her, as it was when she bore it inside her before? Midoriko is strengthened, not weakened, by Kagome."

Kikyo nodded, half-smiling at the shocked looks on the others' faces. _Very clever, monk_. "That would be true, if Midoriko _wanted_ to fight."

Miroku frowned and shook his head. "I am afraid I don't quite understand. Of course Midoriko would fight. She created the Jewel to defeat them in the first place."

"True. But tell me, monk, after so many years, wouldn't _you_ weary of battle? Being trapped inside a Jewel, fighting endlessly with no end in sight, no freedom, no rest for your soul, then offered a host to control. You could be independent, free from your prison. Not to mention Kagome's potential as a powerful weapon, even without the Jewel's added power. All it would require was compromise."

"But she had that before! The Jewel was inside Kagome before!" Shippou yelled, trying to squirm out of Miroku's rock solid grip to leap at Kikyo.

"She was not _within_ Kagome before. Not truly. The Jewel was merely contained within her body; it is now inside her _soul_." She didn't add that it was _her_ soul, as well.

There was silence, the only sounds the crackling of the fire as it burned down.

Finally InuYasha spoke, his voice rough as gravel. "What do we have to do to get that Jewel out of her body?"

"We need to take her to them. Kagome must go to Mount Hiei. The barrier will protect her, and the training will strengthen her."

Miroku's expression was torn. "But… Kikyo, won't---"

"Keh, I told you before, if it helps her, nothing else matters."

_InuYasha, will you think that when we arrive? When they take her from you?_

* * *

In the dark of a locked hut, frightened, cold and alone, Kagome wept softly as she felt her soul being torn apart, her memories jeered at by a sinister chorus of voices, sick tableaux and scenes looping in her head at a will not her own. Her most precious dreams were warped into ugly nightmares, cherished moments turned into terrors she had never conceived of.

"Tell them to kill me, Kikyo," she whispered, tucking her face into her knees and hugging her legs as tightly as the chains would allow.

There was a chuckle not her own, and Kagome stiffened.

_**Now where would be the fun in that?**_

_I __**hate**__ you_, she snarled at the thing prowling inside her mind, poking into dusty corners and moving things as it saw fit.

_**We know. Don't worry, it will all be over soon. We're nearly done. **_

Kagome felt them take hold of her, gripping her mind, body and soul, another part of her leeched away into that disgusting, broiling mass of horror…

She just barely had time to gather herself as they attacked. She fought back, making them screech and claw at her as she retreated into guarding the final bastions within herself that she had left. A cluster of memories, dreams and desires, those she treasured most, gathered to herself as she clung onto with all her might.

_InuYasha's eyes over a campfire._

_Jii-chan's dry hands holding hers as he recounted a legend._

_InuYasha calling her 'wench' with a twinkle in his eye. _

_A picture that Shippou had given her, of all of them surrounded by a love-heart, with "My family" scrawled at the edge._

_InuYasha scowling at her over a ramen container._

_The smell of her mother's perfume._

_InuYasha, jumping as high as he could with her on his back, just to hear her laugh._

_Miroku without shadows in his eyes, staring at his whole hand in disbelief._

_InuYasha, peaceful and asleep on her bed._

_Her brother, nearly exploding with excitement as he showed her his Shinji Ono autograph._

_InuYasha, human, injured and nearly unconscious, telling her he liked the way she smelled._

_Sango, not crying at the memory of Kohaku, but laughing instead._

_InuYasha, catching her when she tripped, and holding her that moment extra._

_Her father, kissing her tiny cheek, her poking his nose with a pudgy finger._

_InuYasha saving her, again, and again, and again, even when she thought he never would._

_InuYasha holding her, giving her everything, crying into her hair. _

_The first time she heard InuYasha laugh._

_InuYasha, staring into her eyes as she begged him to kill her, telling her 'never'. _

_InuYasha, telling her that they'd be together forever, that he'd never leave her, never let her go._

_InuYasha…_

A mocking feminine giggle rang out inside her skull, and Kagome tightened her arms around her legs, trying not to scream.

_InuYasha, you can't save me this time. Just let me go._

But she knew he never would.


	3. Chapter 2

**Leviathan**

* * *

_ All things truly wicked start from an innocence._

_ Ernest Hemingway_

* * *

**Chapter Two**

Mount Hiei loomed in the distance, wreathed by clouds coloured lavender in the dusk. It was a monument to make men tremble, feel keenly their own insignificance. Miroku sighed, absently flexing his right hand, still unused to the flesh of his palm that he could feel stretching.

A day, perhaps two, and they would be at the foot of that mountain. Reservations about the plan still gnawing at his gut, Miroku pondered how best to approach the Jimon abbot. It would call for diplomacy, tact, delicacy, and perhaps a little creativity with the truth. He only hoped that he was equal to the task. The cost was too high to leave anything to chance.

"Houshi-sama," Sango hissed from in front of him on Kirara, and he jumped, realising belatedly just where his hand was flexing.

"Yes, Sango?" Perhaps innocence would work.

"Do you _want_ to walk?" He could see her jaw clench as she turned her head slightly to glare at him.

Damn. "Not particularly."

She sighed and leaned slightly back into him. He could feel the tension humming through her. "Just…not now, Miroku."

His hands moved to encircle her abdomen, cradling her to him with his chin on her shoulder. Her muscles were still taught and her brow furrowed, but there was nothing that he could do about that, with all the comic relief in the world. They were all tense.

He cast a look sideways to where Hachiemon, his tanuki vassal, flew in his transformed state, a giant, undulating yellow sausage. Kikyo sat on his neck, cross-legged with head bowed, and he could feel the power flowing out of her like water over a cliff. It just didn't end.What would it be like, to have that much power?

He shuddered, never wanting to find out.

Behind Kikyo, another young woman sat, staring blankly as the scenery passed them by. Kagome, papered with ofuda and charms from Miroku and Kaede as well as Kikyo, could barely breathe without being purified. Kikyo had insisted that they could indeed use demonic wards on her, something they had tried but failed at. Much to Miroku's chagrin and InuYasha's frustration, Kikyo's ofuda worked. Kagome was pacified and pliant, if still snarling insults and threats at every opportunity. Her periods of normalcy were shortening all the time.

No, it's not Kagome. That fact was something that he had been having to reiterate to himself repeatedly. The monster had his friend's face, her memories, and it used them to hurt where it knew that the barbs would cut deep.

_"You think that she'll ever trust you?"_

He winced slightly at the memory. The hurtful, scarring speech that Kagome had given him, before they'd known that something was very wrong, when he had thought that she meant it.

"_You're a liar, an adulterer, a petty con artist who plays on people's fears to take what you can get. You use women for nothing more than your own needs, and you expect a woman like Sango to just submit to that?"_

The worst part of it was that much of what she had spat at him, pinning him with an accusatory forefinger jabbed in his chest, had been at least partly true.

_"She's too good for you. She's too _strong_ for you. You were weak, hiding behind that curse, and now that it's gone, what else can you blame for your faults? God forbid that you take responsibility and shape up to become something to be proud of. No, that would be accepting that life doesn't owe you anything!"_

He let out a weak chuckle, tightening his grip on the woman in front of him, who sighed and leaned her head back against his shoulder. No matter who had really spoken those words, Kagome or the malicious Jewel, they'd woken him up. In a fit of pique and self-righteous anger, he had decided to prove her wrong by confronting Sango.

"A woman like Sango, who has fought for everything she's ever had, could never be happy with a weakling like you."

But he'd done it. Sango was his wife. Finally.

"Oi, monk."

"Yes, InuYasha?"

"We gotta stop soon. Start scouting for campsites," the hanyou ordered, before bounding off the north, presumably to do the same.

Sango sighed irritably and frowned. "You would think he could ask me."

"Now, Sango, you know how he gets. Don't blame him."

She smiled wryly and nodded, conceding the point, before settling forwards and steering Kirara off to the south. Miroku left the task of finding somewhere to camp up to her, retreating into his mind and ordering his thoughts as best he was able.

The only thing he could do now was pray.

* * *

The sonorous echo of a bell rang out, and the hum of the monks' chanting followed soon after. The prosperous temple of Mii-dera at the foot of Mount Hiei produced enough of an economy to support a town of farmers and traders who supplied them. The town of Shitayama was small, but neat, and the faces were friendly to the three of the group who walked through the town. They were to deliver a plea for an audience with the abbot of Mii-dera, the temple at the foot of Mount Hiei.

InuYasha had no desire to catch up, and he didn't think he'd be very welcome even if he could withstand the holy aura of the mountain. He'd probably end up farting on the Sacred Cushion of Virtue or sneezing on the Holy Ancient Teachings of Whoever or something like that. Tact was not his forte. Give him something to yell at and smash in two, and he was in his element. Delicate situations he tended to blunder around in like a rabid oxen. He would much rather leave the delicate phrasing and diplomacy up to monks and priestesses.

He sat on a small hillock overlooking the paddy fields, a breeze blowing lightly across the grass. Kagome was cradled in his lap, and Kirara and Hachi were curled up a few metres away. Her small hand was curled in a death grip around his rosary as she tried to press herself closer to him, as if she wanted to crawl inside him, right next to his heart.

He ducked his head and touched his nose to her hair, breathing the smell of it in. It still smelled like he remembered, musky but sweet, a scent that warmed him as he took it in. Never mind the fact that she hadn't used the scented shampoo that she loved so much for months, saving the tiny bit left in the bottle for 'a special occasion' she had said. Or that last night was the first bath she had had in weeks, swearing and spitting at Sango but held motionless by Kikyo's ofuda. She still smelled like herself, and that was something InuYasha clung to. Everything else could lie, but scent was almost always true. It had to be, in this case; InuYasha didn't know what he'd do if something else went wrong.

She was free of the ofuda, now. They were so close that he could feel the touch of Mt Hiei's aura, not enough to purify either of them, but enough to calm her, to pacify the demons inside of her. She was herself again, and she remembered everything.

The guilt had rocked her for a long time, and InuYasha's suikan was still slightly damp from her tears. The smell of salt and grief hung heavy in the air, but his control remained intact. Barely. He couldn't afford to snap, though. Not here and now. She needed him now. All the time in the world for rage and random acts of destruction later when she was inside.

_Inside that place… there's something about it… damn it, I don't know. I can't even get close enough to smell it._

He hated feeling helpless. But this was something that he couldn't protect her from. He would have to rely on strangers, give her into their care, let them take her where he couldn't see her, couldn't smell her, couldn't keep her safe. He had vowed to protect her, and he had failed.

It seemed like he was destined to fail at everything that really mattered.

It had been so long, too long since he had held her, just her, not a snarling hateful creature who tried to kill him even as his heart broke over and over. He hadn't realised before just how much the lack of contact had shaken him. He had been so focused on finding a way to help her, he hadn't noticed the way that he was being affected. He needed her: like he needed air to breathe, he needed Kagome to stay sane.

He felt her shift in his arms and pulled back from her enough to look at her face. She tipped her head back and smiled when he tightened his arms around her, lifting the hand not hanging onto his rosary to touch his cheek.

"InuYasha." Her eyes met his, and he nearly cried in relief at what he saw in them.

He had been terrified that she would be angry at him when she came back to herself, would hate him for what he had done to her. But despite all that, all the times he'd had to knock her out with a blow to the head, restrain her and let her exhaust herself with rage, feed her with a spoon as she tried to bite his fingers off, lock her up and leave her alone in a cold dark hut before she destroyed what sanity he had left… Despite all that, she still loved him. This strange girl was beyond his comprehension sometimes.

He buried his nose in her neck and clung to her, gulping in great lung-fulls of her scent as the relief nearly overpowered him. So much had happened since that innocent promise of forever that she had given him, her shining eyes still free of those ghosts that haunted her now, both of them believing that all their troubles were over now, rather than just beginning. Naraku had been dead, they were young and in love… what could possibly have come between them?

They had been foolish. The one principle that he had learned to trust in no matter what, is that life will deal you the worst hand you can imagine, just because it can. Expect the worst, and then you'll never be surprised. He'd forgotten that truth that night, and all his dreams, so hesitantly imagined, had come crashing down around him.

Delicate arms came around to encircle his neck and she started to stroke his hair, crooning soothingly under her breath as he tried to rein his thoughts and emotions in.

"I'm supposed to be comforting you, you know," he muttered into her skin.

"You were never very good at that," she whispered back, and he could hear the smile in her voice.

"Keh." He wrapped his arms tighter around her ribcage, trying to memorise everything about her: the way she felt in his arms, the sound of her heartbeat, the rhythm of her breath…

"It won't be for that long, you know," she said, trying to sound optimistic. "Before you know it, we'll be arguing just like old times, and you'll wonder just what sort of woman you went to all this trouble for."

InuYasha let out a choked laugh into her skin. "Well, you always were a bossy wench."

She tweaked an ear. "Damn straight, dog-boy, and don't you forget it."

He raised his head suddenly, staring hard into her eyes with fierce determination. The surprise on her face quickly faded to sad longing, and her hand cupped his cheek again.

"I'll be waiting for you, Kagome. I'll wait for you forever."

She bit her lip, her eyes worried as her thumb absently stroked his cheekbone. "Forever is a long time, InuYasha."

"I don't care."

She didn't try to argue, but there was something he didn't like in her eyes.

"I want you to promise me something, InuYasha."

He didn't hesitate. "Anything."

She paused, chewing her lip, before ploughing onwards. "Swear you'll take care of yourself, no matter what."

A hint of his old bravado came back, and he scoffed. "Keh. What are you talking about, wench?"

"I mean it, InuYasha!" she said, grabbing his side-locks. Her eyes held his as she spoke slowly and seriously. "No matter what happens, I want you to promise me that you'll be careful. No reckless fighting, no throwing yourself away for nothing. I want you to be happy, and to keep living, even… even if…"

InuYasha thought that he should have grown used to the feeling of the bottom falling out of his world, but he wasn't. Something in Kagome's tone terrified him. "Even if what?"

She took a deep breath, and looked down at the rosary. "Even if it's not with me."

The words took a moment to register, and when they did InuYasha grasped her chin in his claws, tilting it up so that her gaze met his.

"That will never happen, Kagome. What would I tell Shippou if you never came home? He'd hate me forever."

She just shook her head sadly and frowned, leaning forwards to rest her forehead against his. He closed the tiny gap between them, pressing his lips to hers in a bittersweet kiss that said goodbye more eloquently than any words could. Her fingertips gently traced his face as she stared into his eyes, and she let out a sound halfway between a sigh and a sob.

"How will I survive away from you? I don't think I can live without you," she whispered against his lips, an echo of his own thoughts. He was about to reply when he heard the jingle of the rings on Miroku's staff from at the foot of the small hillock.

"They're here, Kagome," InuYasha whispered, and she closed her eyes.

"You haven't promised yet."

"What?"

"InuYasha," she scolded lightly, and as her eyes opened again, he could see just how serious she was about this.

Pulling her hands off his face gently, he held them in his own between their bodies, squeezing them in reassurance. "I promise."

Miroku and Sango had reached them, and InuYasha had to resist the urge to just leap away with her, to run away and never look back. She looked like she felt the same, and wrapped her too-skinny arms around him one final time. He could hear her heartbeat thunder through her veins, and the slight rasp of her breath. Too long in a cold hut clapped in irons had taken its toll on her body. That, more than anything, convinced him.

_She needs this. If it's the only way, then it's the only way._

He stood, lifting her to her feet effortlessly, her arms still around him.

"I don't want to go," she whimpered into his chest, and he smelled the first sign of a new bout of tears. InuYasha knew that if he held her for much longer, he would never be able to let her go. He nodded to Sango, who came forward and took Kagome's shoulder as he gently detached her arms.

Kagome's face was tear-streaked and terrified as Sango pulled her away. He cracked a smile for her, one of his cocky ones, and put the best arrogant smirk into his tone that he could manage. "It'll be over before you know it. See you on the new moon, wench."

Her eyes were wide and lips quivering, but she nodded and smiled for him. Before his will dissolved and he swept her away forever, he called for Kirara and leapt onto the transformed firecat, not daring to look back as she carried him up into the sky, far away from the sacred mountain and its warrior-monks.

He never could stand to see Kagome cry.

* * *

Incense smudged the air and made Kagome sneeze as Sango and Miroku guided her through the passages of the monastery. The walk from the town to the temple had exhausted her weak body, but although she felt that she would collapse any moment, she refused to let the weakness overcome her. There was far too much riding on this interview with the head monk. Mii-dera, the temple at the foot of Mount Hiei, was the centre of the Jimon Tendai monks. The once united Tendai sect had fractured after the death of its founder, and Dengyo Daishi's successors Enchi and Ennin had set up temples at both the summit and foot of the holy mountain.

They entered a large room filled with candles and incense pots, and Kagome saw Kikyo seated serenely on a zabuton, eyes closed and face peaceful. A group of monks sat slightly apart from her, chanting slowly under their breath in a nasal hum that Kagome could feel in her bones. She sank to her knees silently beside Kikyo and folded her hands in her lap, awaiting her fate demurely.

The demons in her were silent, and she could practically feel them cringe at the holy aura that oozed from the very wood beneath her knees.

The chanting changed suddenly, and a gong rang out. The monks sank low to the ground, and the long note that they held tapered out gradually.

Kagome looked up from her lap. A man of middle years, head bald and face traced with deep, austere lines, stood in front of her, hands buried in his orange robes in an achingly familiar way. He stared down at her with an unreadable, stern expression.

"You are the petitioner." His voice was deep and brooked no argument.

"Yes," she replied, just barely above a whisper.

"Follow me," he intoned, turning with a flourish of robes and a flutter of attendants.

Kagome meekly stood and followed, Kikyo leading the way. Miroku and Sango made to follow her in turn, but the other monks in the room had stood and barred the way with stony and resolute expressions. The abbot halted around the corner from the audience room and turned to her, eyes unreadable.

"They shall go no further. Say your farewells now," he ordered, looking thoroughly uninterested.

Her eyes widened and she shook her head, fear finally taking a firm hold on her. "They have to stay!"

The abbot's eyes turned hard and unyielding. "That is my decision. You and the Shinto priestess will remain, and that is all. Distractions are unnecessary and counterproductive. You must remove yourself from earthly attachments, your friends among them."

The reality of what was happening hit Kagome suddenly, winding her as effectively as if someone had punched her in the gut. This training would change her. It was necessary, vital even, but what was it going to cost her?

She finally looked around the corner at her two friends, who were arguing just out of clear earshot with the monks keeping them from her. They would be no obstacle if Sango and Miroku decided to fight, but that would mean that Kagome was refused aid for sure. They couldn't afford that. If she left without training, the Jewel would take hold of her again, and everything that Kagome was would be lost. Who knows what it might make her do?

She had to do this. No matter what it cost her. Squaring her jaw and ordering herself not to cry, she marched forward to say goodbye to her friends for an indeterminate period of time.

Sango and Miroku were obviously worried when she reached them. "What's going on, Kagome? Why aren't they letting us through?" Sango asked fiercely. Miroku, however, bore an expression that suggested his suspicions had merely been confirmed. She supposed he had probably guessed; he was a trained monk, after all, if a little unorthodox.

Kagome couldn't answer her friend's questions, just ducking her head and hugging Sango for all she was worth. Being away from them scared her, but the evil lurking just below the surface of her mind terrified her far more. She couldn't afford to take chances, and she knew that she was at the mercy of these monks. If this didn't work, she didn't know what she would do.

"I'll miss you guys," she muttered into Sango's shoulder, before letting her friend go and offering a tremulous smile. "They won't let you stay. Earthly distractions and all that." She tried to sound flippant and relaxed, but their frowns told her she was not succeeding. "Kikyo is staying, and you can visit with InuYasha."

Sango looked ready to argue, but Miroku's hand on her arm stopped her. "I understand," he said gently, smile reassuring and wide. "We then take our leave of you, Kagome. Train hard."

Sango bit her lip and nodded, unable to speak, and Kagome knew she had to go. With a final bright smile, almost a perfect imitation of her former self, she spun on a heel and resolutely followed the abbot and Kikyo into the depths of Mii-dera.

* * *

The abbot peered at Kagome over his cup of steaming and nauseatingly aromatic tea. The pause stretched on, and she felt her legs begin to cramp from sitting so still for so long. She shifted slightly.

"Ah ha! As I thought. No discipline," the monk stated with satisfaction.

She blinked. "What?"

"No respect, either! No wonder you were weak enough to succumb to the demons."

"Hey! That's not true."

He fixed her with a gaze. "Really? Then what can we possibly teach you here?"

She opened her mouth to speak, and shut it again. Maybe he was right.

He leaned back into his many cushions, sipping tea with relish and watching her. "The monks of Mount Hiei are famous for many things. The warrior monks for one, of course. But there are other, less glamorous practices for which we are renowned." He paused and gazed meaningfully at Kagome, as if expecting a reaction. When she gave none, he sighed and gestured dramatically. "I am speaking, of course of the Three Hells of Hiei."

Kagome blinked.

"But these are for the advanced individuals. First, you must disconnect yourself with the earthly plane of desire and self-image. You are a selfish being---"

"Hey!"

"---as we all are, and I will strip that from you. You must have no desires, no attachments, no earthly connections, or you will never defeat the demons within you. It is the only way."

His eyes narrowed. "Are you prepared for this task?"

Apprehension swamped her, but she found herself nodding. "Yes, I am."

He smiled secretively. "Then we begin tomorrow."

* * *

The setting sun bathed the lotus flowers in pink, the air breathless and making a mirror of the lake. Carp swum beneath the surface, gold and white and black and all in between, and the valley below was as clear as if it were scarcely an arms length away. It was a breath-taking scene, but Kagome couldn't help but hate it a little. A listless sigh escaped her as she imagined what InuYasha would say to her were he here, sitting beside the lake on the soft grass. He'd complain at first, for appearances sake, but eventually he'd sit with her, and she'd lean on his shoulder. With their new closeness, he might even enfold her in his arms, holding her close so she could breathe him in and feel his heart beat.

Kikyo pursed her lips ever so slightly, stepping off the temple's balcony onto the gravel path. "Kagome, it's time to come in. Food is being served."

No response.

Coming up behind Kagome, she cleared her throat.

Again the girl ignored her, and Kikyo frowned. Fine. See if she cared if the girl ate. She turned to go.

"I never wanted this. Any of this," Kagome finally said softly.

Bitter amusement filled Kikyo at that. "The world doesn't care for what we want."

"Do you know where I'm from? I'm from the future. Five hundred years. I was pulled back here through the Bone Eater's Well to fix things. Things you broke. Or so I thought. I freed InuYasha, killed Naraku, and I thought I'd get my reward. It was only fair for what it took from me."

"Then you were foolish and stupid."

Kagome shrugged. "Maybe I was. But I always thought that everything would work out. I guess what I'm trying to say is… well, maybe I understand you better now."

Kikyo flinched, the remark striking her like a blow. "Do not dare to compare yourself to me. You are nothing like me."

A small smile crept across Kagome's face. "So I've realised. At last."

They were silent for a moment, before Kagome whispered almost to herself, "I wonder what they're doing now at the village."

Kikyo turned on her with a fury. "Stupid girl! Your old life is dead. Who you were is as good as dead, too."

"I never wanted any of this!"

"Wake up! What you want never matters. There is never a choice. In anyone's life."

With that, she marched back up the path, lost in demons of her own.


	4. Chapter 3

**Leviathan**

* * *

_"For where thou art, there is the world itself,_

_and where thou art not, desolation."_

_William Shakespeare  
_

* * *

Chapter Three:

The monk's stick hit her back with a deafening crack. A few desperate tears fell to the tatami, but when Kagome straightened from her prostrate position her face was blank.

"Concentrate, girl. Back straight, breathe from the abdomen. Centre and let it flow through you," Dasue ordered, continuing down the line of initiates, all boys as young as four save Kagome.

And all a lot better at meditation than her, too, she thought acidly.

Continuous seated meditation was the first step in one's path to freeing oneself from earthly constraints. Also one of the most potent tortures invented. Her back ached with tension and from the monk's strikes. Her legs and backside were numb, her stomach felt like it was imploding with hunger and her head throbbed.

A bell rung out across the room, the sound buzzing through her teeth, and the initiates all rose, calmly leaving for their sparse mid-day meal.

"Kagome, remain."

She whirled on the monk, Dasue, with a scowl. "What?"

"You are to remain in meditation for the duration of the day."

She gaped. "What about lunch?"

He waved a thin hand dismissively, his orange robes flowing through the movement like water. "Unimportant. Your body will survive, and it is your spirit I am concerned with."

She bristled, preparing to fight him about it, when he brandished his cane. "Woman, you are here to learn. I am not even certain that it is possible to teach you the discipline a monk possesses, but I will try. If that should prove pointless, you will be cast out. Am I clear?"

Her gaze dropped to the floor, terror sweeping through her at the memory of being prisoner in her own body once more. "Yes."

"Yes, who?" he corrected, sounding almost like her mother.

"Yes, venerable one."

She sank to the floor, folding her legs under her and closing her eyes, trying to find the centre that the monks all seemed to think was there. Back straight but not tense. Shoulders back but not forced. Breathe slowly and economically, from the diaphragm. There is no one else here.

He touched her shoulder. She leaned forward to take the strike from the cane without a blink.

* * *

His hands trembled, claws dripping blood, as InuYasha stared in horror at the remains of the deer at his feet.

He had meant to hunt for meat. Food for Sango, Kaede, Shippo. But this was no clean kill. The dear was torn, veins and muscles strewn across the trees, blood sluggishly oozing from the torn arteries. He glanced to the side and recoiled. The deer's eyes, somehow still terrified, stared up at him from the pool of brains at his feet.

There was nothing left of the animal to eat.

His youkai bubbled just at the edge of his consciousness, unsatisfied and still seething. The pain and dismemberment of the deer had pacified it, but still it hungered. Hungered for blood. Human blood.

_What am I becoming?_

With an anguished cry, he leapt away.

* * *

The first time she tried to escape, they locked her in a dark cellar for three days. Three days with only water, no food. No light. No sound. Nothing.

Kikyo finally rescued her, supporting Kagome's shaking body as they made their slow way back to the annex where they slept.

Fevered and desperate, Kagome clung to Kikyo as the other woman laid her down on the futon. "Why won't they let me rest?"

Kikyo's expression was unreadable, but her touch gentle as she smoothed the matted hair from Kagome's brow. "There is no rest for any of us. We take all the world can give us, and then more, until we either beat it or we break."

Too tired to question, too tired even to weep, Kagome settled for the despair that clung to her like a shroud.

* * *

"Faster! I want to see pain, girl! Pain is nothing. Suffering is an illusion. All you are feeling is transient. Overcome it!" Dasue screeched from his seat under the eaves. Kagome didn't even blink, simply stepping up the pace in her activity.

The rain poured down in sheets, and her hair clung to her face. Tossing it out of the way, she renewed her grip on the bucket. Her back ached from hours of bending and straightening, and the continual strikes of Dasue's cane. The water in the hole rose steadily, even as she bailed it out swiftly. The fact that her bucket had a hole in it may have had something to do with her lack of success.

"Life is an uphill struggle. We suffer, we cause suffering and then we die. The only way to break this cycle is to accept it. Accept that life is futile, and you will truly be able to stand apart from it," Dasue lectured.

Fatigue and cold sank into her bones, but still she laboured. There was no choice. There was never any choice.

* * *

The second time she tried to run away, they strapped her to a pole and beat her to unconsciousness, all the while telling her the pain was a mirage, a ruse that she must see through.

Kikyo untied her and helped her back to their room. With a gentle touch she bathed the welts and cuts.

"Why are you doing this?" Kagome whispered, barely able to speak through the pain. Her lip was swollen where she had fallen when Kikyo had finally cut her loose, and she was sure at least one of her ribs had to be broken.

Kikyo didn't pause, laying another cool cloth on Kagome's bloody back. "Doing what?"

"Helping me. I thought you hated me."

Kikyo sighed. "You set my soul free, and I can never repay you for that."

"But I stole him from you." Kagome's voice was choked with tears, and Kikyo brushed a gentle hand over the younger woman's hair.

"Maybe you did."

Kagome grabbed her hand and held it as tightly as she could in her weak state. "I'm sorry."

Slowly, the dead woman lay down on the futon next to her. Kagome's hand was warm as hers could never be again, but she held it tightly in return. She waited as Kagome drifted off into painful unconsciousness before looking at their joint hands. Virtually identical, but so very, very different.

"Or maybe he wasn't mine to begin with," she whispered.

* * *

"What do you mean I can't see her?" InuYasha demanded. The monk barring his way was impassive even in the face of InuYasha's fury. His fingers itched where his claws should have been and he curled his hands into fists. The knuckles popped with a sickening crack. Even as a human, he could kill this man.

_Yes_, his youkai hissed in the back of his mind. InuYasha shook his head to clear it. He needed to see her; everything would be okay if he could just see her.

The monk's eyes were flinty and uncompromising. "The abbot's directive is clear. She is to have no visitors. That monk upset her training enough already," he spat, the title clearly an insult.

"But she's my…" He trailed off, unable to finish. She was just his, in every sense of the word.

"Your what, demon? Your wife? She is nothing here. She is a supplicant, and if she is to remain here then it is on our terms. Would you like her to be cast out?"

InuYasha had no reply. He was helpless, floundering in a situation way over his depth. This was something he couldn't defeat; couldn't fight. How could he save Kagome when his own mind was betraying him? When the monk turned to go his hand shot out to grab the other man's shoulder.

The monk turned with a raised eyebrow. "What is it?"

"When--" He could hardly get the word out. Something was sticking in his throat. "When can I see her? Next month?"

Something almost like pity entered the monk's eyes. "No. Not next month. Not the month after that." He sighed and shuffled his feet. "Look, there is no easy way to tell you this. Her situation is grave, and the training is hard for her. It's not going well."

InuYasha's frown deepened into a scowl. "What?"

"She is too attached. To the physical world. She still thinks of those she loves."

"Well of course she does!" Uncomfortable wasn't strong enough a word to describe how InuYasha felt hearing a stranger talking about Kagome like this.

"But don't you see? If she still has earthly attachments… still loves, she'll never be free. She'll have to remain here, at the monastery, until she dies. Unless she can transcend."

Slowly realisation dawned. "She can't control them… because she loves?"

"Yes."

A cold dread flooded over him. "So… if she gets better… she won't love me anymore."

The monk wouldn't meet his gaze. "It's as I said. It's better if she doesn't see you. It's better if she doesn't even know you were here."

InuYasha felt like he had just been punched in the gut. No, that would be a blessing in comparison. He felt like his insides had been ripped out of his body. He was hollow.

"It would be best if she forgot you."

Stumbling, incoherent, he turned and made his way down the hillside. He was never going to get his Kagome back.

Never. If she came back, it would be because she didn't love him anymore. She wouldn't love anyone. That wouldn't be Kagome.

Kagome was lost to him.

His breathing had sped up and his head felt light. Is this what dying feels like? he wondered.

_No,_ his youkai crooned, _this is what it is to be set free_.

The barrier from the holy mountain washed over him and he walked out into the clear air.

_Embrace me_.

He threw back his head and howled.

* * *

The third time Kagome ran away, she succeeded. She was beyond the village and into the forest before the demons arose, scratching at the border of her mind. Fear tore through her and she ran back up the mountain.

Kikyo was waiting for her.

The climb back up the mountain on barely any food had taken its inevitable toll, and Kagome was shaking with exhaustion. But when she fell, cold arms caught her.

Kikyo's expression was as unreadable as always, but when she spoke, her voice was kind. Maybe there was some pity in it, too, but Kagome was too tired to tell.

"You'll only kill yourself this way."

Kagome leant on her heavily as they walked back to their room, and when the tears started, Kikyo didn't let go. She held her close until she was spent.

There was never any choice.

* * *

They had been walking for five days. Dasue powered on before her. She couldn't fathom where he was getting his energy. Five days of barely enough food to sustain them, a few minutes of sleep snatched here and there, and of the world dwindling to nothing except the rhythm of putting one foot in front of the other. She was beginning to understand why monks always looked so thin. They never ate.

Dasue turned in front of her and fixed her with a stare that was always followed by preaching. He continued walking backwards, seemingly uncaring about keeping his footing on the side of the mountain.

"Walking is peerless meditation. The activity occupies the body so wholly that the mind is lulled into a state usually unattainable to those untrained. Memorise this feeling, girl. Feel what it is to be at peace, for you mind to be quiet. When you can recreate this at will, when you live in this state always, you shall have conquered yourself, and the demons within you."

Kagome could barely nod, and focused on putting one foot in front of the other.

* * *

Kagome lay face-down on her futon in her and Kikyo's tiny room, separated from the rest of the monastery. They were the only women on all of Mt Hiei, a temptation most men were not strong enough to resist. Or so Dasue told her.

She winced as Kikyo laid another cool wet rag on a raised bruise. She seemed to be made of bruises and nothing else, lately. She had fallen asleep at meditation, and been punished accordingly. The other woman's touch was soothing and Kagome was relaxed, something she never thought she would feel in Kikyo's presence.

"That's the last one. Try not to roll during the night."

Kagome nodded, head still buried in her arms.

"Are you hungry?"

"No. I don't think I could keep it down."

She heard Kikyo sigh. "You must eat. Don't let them get to you."

Kagome laughed bitterly. "Isn't that why we're here? So they can mould me?"

"No, we are here so you can learn to control the demons in your soul. Their torture of you is merely a test. An unnecessarily cruel one, maybe, but one you must pass." She laid a blanket over Kagome's back. "If you won't eat, at least sleep. You need it. I'll be back tomorrow."

Kagome nodded, trying not to think of why Kikyo had to leave the protection of the spiritual barrier. "'Bye."

A gentle hand touched her hair. "Remember what I said. Suffering is inevitable, but do not let it destroy you."

"Why do you help me, Kikyo?"

There was a pause, before Kikyo replied quietly, "I'm not sure myself. I just know I can't hate you anymore."

Kagome smiled faintly, almost bitterly. "I know how you feel."

* * *

Miroku trudged wearily up the path towards Mt Hiei. Sango had offered him Kirara, but he had declined. It had been too long since he had travelled by foot, alone, just another wandering monk.

The mountain loomed in the distance, not as far as before but not as close as he had hoped it would have been by now. It would be several hours before he reached the town, and then he would have to wait for tomorrow to enter the temple.

A shiver ran up his spine at a familiar sound: a whining buzz that made the hair on his neck lift in a combination of disgust and fear.

A shinidamachuu emerged from the trees to his left, circled him once and flew off down the path.

Miroku began to run.

* * *

Another soul entered her body with a hum, the vibrations singing through her and invigoration filling her body with restless energy. She resisted it, knowing she needed to collect a reserve to sustain her for a few precious days cut off from her shinidamachuu.

"I knew it," a venomous voice snapped from the tree line to her left. She snapped her head around, to see Miroku staring at her with pure hatred, staff brandished and hand reaching inside his robe for his ofuda. "I knew you were not to be trusted, but InuYasha swore it. How foolish of us."

The souls had rejuvenated her, and she was feeling giddy with power. This monk was no threat. "And what have I supposedly done?" she drawled, leaning her head back against the trunk and closing her eyes.

"Abandoned Kagome!" he yelled, his voice cracking.

She raised an elegant eyebrow and opened her eyes. "You are foolish, monk. I keep my promises. I have remained with her, but in order to keep that promise I must live, after all."

He stared at her blankly, until a shinidamachuu brushed against his arm. He recoiled with a yelp.

With a sigh, she stood. "Come with me. You will see her for yourself." His glare was still fierce, but his stance had relaxed slightly, and she breezed past him back towards the mountain.

* * *

"Kagome!"

Her head whipped up at a familiar voice. "Miroku!" She dropped the boken she was holding, ignoring Dasue's acid look, and threw herself into the monk's waiting arms.

"It's so good to see you! How is everyone? Is InuYasha ok? Is Shippo--"

Dasue's hand landed on her shoulder, cutting her off mid-sentence. Her face fell and she turned towards her instructor with a bowed head.

"No distractions."

"Yes, venerable one."

"Turn around."

Stricken, she gave Miroku a frantic look. "You have to leave now."

He frowned. "What? Why? I only just got here."

Desperate, she turned to Kikyo, ignoring Miroku's surprise. "Please."

Kikyo nodded gravely and grasped Miroku's arm. "Come. I'll explain." He resisted, but he was confused and she was firm.

They left the courtyard, and Kagome bowed her head.

The cane fell.

* * *

A loud crack resounded through the monastery and Miroku whipped his head around. "What is that?"

Kikyo's face showed no emotion. "She is being punished."

"What? Why?"

Kikyo smiled sarcastically. "You surely don't believe that this would be easy on her?"

Miroku's face hardened. "I do believe one thing. You haven't stopped them."

"They would cast her out. Would you like me to risk that? Let her return to her madness?"

He was shaking with anger, and for a brief moment she thought he might hit her. But he deflated, defeat sagging his shoulders. "What can I do?"

"Leave. The sooner you do, the sooner she herself can."

* * *

Kagome stared at Dasue through her eyelashes, hating him with such force that it scared her. She didn't think she'd even hated Naraku this much, which was awful. Naraku had been an evil creature who visited suffering on the innocent and good, whereas Dasue was just a monk. A holy man, doing his best to please Buddha and meet the tenets of his faith.

All the same, Kagome hated him.

He was eating. Slowly, and with relish. Pears and peaches and cherries. The juice ran down his chin as he chewed, not bothering to close his mouth. The sucking, smacking noises echoed through the great hall where the monks gathered to pray, although it was empty now. Empty of all but Dasue and Kagome. The smell of the fruit tantalised her, driving her nearly insane with hunger. She had not eaten for days.

"You know, Kagome," he mumbled around a mouthful of fruit, "You are going to have to let go sometime. It's just making it harder for you."

Kagome maintained the meek expression she had perfected in their weeks together. "What is, venerable one?"

"Don't play that with me, my dear. I can see right through it. You know what I speak of. As soon as you free yourself from their chains, you will be free."

"I'm sure I don't understand your meaning, venerable one."

He sighed and waved a hand. "Your earthly attachments. Your trivial affections. Carnal bonds. These are the only things remaining between you and transcendence."

She frowned and looked him in the eyes, dropping the act. "But they're not here. They aren't affecting me."

He smiled patronisingly and sipped his tea. "You aren't stupid. Don't pretend to be. You think of them, don't you?"

"Well, yes, but--"

"Then that's my point."

Anger bubbled up. "Well, what do you expect? Surely even someone like you has someone you care about? Think about?"

"No."

She faltered. "What?"

Rolling his eyes, he lifted a sleeve to wipe his mouth. "We are monks, Kagome. None of us retains ties to the outside world. We could not achieve Nirvana otherwise."

"But Miroku--"

"--is from a different sect. One whose teachings I do not agree with. He is a travelling monk, one of a more lenient, lazy discipline. And that, girl, is my point."

"What is?" she cried, desperation tinging her tone.

"That love is the only thing holding you back. As long as you hold these people in your heart… you mind… your soul… the demons will hold sway. You must focus everything you have on that. Nothing can be allowed to intrude if you are to survive."

Tears stung her eyes and it was getting harder to breathe. "But what if I just stay here and they visit?"

Slowly, he shook his head, and Kagome almost thought she saw pity in his gaze. "That will not work. This is not an ordinary case. The demons are not invading, they inhabit. They are inside you. Inside your soul. They are part of you, and that can only be kept at bay for so long. When a part of you is suppressed, it has to surface. Eventually. It may be next month, next year, ten years from now, but if you don't master yourself, eventually they will win.

And who knows how much destruction they will wreak."


End file.
